Clinical psychoanalysis serves as our best laboratory for exploring the riddle of what it is to be a person, and how a person is at once singularly unique while always a piece of the interpersonal fabric of humanity. In Intimacy and Separateness in Psychoanalysis, Warren Poland casts a freshly erudite eye on this paradox, resisting individual or intersubjective bias and avoiding the parochial allegiances common in our age of pluralism. Poland combines vivid reports from clinical analyses, literary readings, and his own life – all unfolding original observations on a person as both a part of and apart from human commonality. His consideration of how one person’s witnessing facilitates another’s self-definition, a concept extended here in his study of outsiderness as part of human nature, has been marked a keynote contribution. Clinical illustrations of moments that matter but are usually omitted from public presentation are set alongside examples of reading powerful fiction to show how analyst and author both incite fresh openness in a person’s mind. Poland goes farther, exposing the personal power of union and separateness in its keenest form, facing the ultimate separation of one’s own actual death. Only with separateness can true intimacy grow, and only within the fabric of others can true individuality exist. This evocative book, ranging from the lightness of whimsy to the dread of dying, allows every reader to taste of and learn from Poland’s thinking. Psychoanalyst or patient, writer or reader, each one living one’s own life – all can find new understandings in this work.

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Virtual Intimacy and Communication in Film brings together a group of psychoanalysts to explore, through film, the new forms of communication, mainly the internet, that enter more and more frequently into the affective lives of people, their intimacy and even the analytic room. The contributors, all practising psychoanalysts, analyse the potential and surprising transformations that human relationships, including psychoanalysis, are undergoing. At present, it is difficult to value the future importance and predict the possible disquieting consequences of the use and abuse of the new technologies; we run the risk of finding ourselves unprepared to face this revolutionary transformation in human connections and affects. Will it be possible in a near future that human beings prefer to fall in love with a machine gifted with a persuasive voice instead of a psychoanalyst 'in person'? The contributors explore the idea that virtual intimacy could begin to replace real life, in sentimental and psychoanalytic relationships. Imagination and fantasy may be strengthened and may ultimately prevail over the body, excluding it entirely. Can the voice of the analyst, sometimes transmitted only by telephone or computer, produce a good enough analytic process as if it were in-person, or will it help to foster a process of idealisation and progressive alienation from real life and connections with other human beings? The film Her (2013), alongside others, offers a wonderful script for discussing this matter, because of the deep and thoughtful examination of love and relationships in the contemporary world that it provides. Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Virtual Intimacy and Communication in Film will be of great interest to all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists interested in the ongoing impact of technology on human relationships.

Autonomy, Relatedness and Oedipus is an innovative and inspiring work from Thijs de Wolf that takes a critical look at the field of psychoanalysis. He takes the view that psychoanalysis is about both the inner and outer world and presents a compelling case. Using the works of Freud and other leading writers, such as Ferenczi, Faimberg, Laplanche, Lacan, Fonagy, Target, and Blatt, de Wolf investigates the central concepts of psychoanalysis and its place in the world. The wide-ranging chapters include a detailed examination of Freud's book on Leonardo da Vinci; discussions of the personality, the unconscious, and sexuality; the development of the psychoanalytic frame, not just in terms of the individual but also the object relational, group, and systemic aspects; the issue of descriptive and structural diagnostics and how to find a balance between the two; the analysis of dreams; the concept of change; the difficulties surrounding termination of treatment; and end with a novel explication of the oedipal constellation that brings many new insights to a key foundation stone of psychoanalytic theory. This book is written for trainees and professionals looking to find their own "path" in psychoanalysis; those open to findings from other scientific areas, such as developmental psychopathology, the neurosciences, attachment theories, and human infant research. De Wolf's theoretical pluralism and breadth of scholarship bestows a stimulating range of ideas to take psychoanalysis back to its place as a leader in the field.

Intimacy is a complex and heterogeneous concept that has generated a variety of definitions, theories, and philosophies over the years. Al though there is much disagreement about the essential meaning of the term, there seems to be a consensus that intimacy, whatever it may be, is of central importance in human relationships, and specifically, in the theory and practice of psychotherapy. One approach to intimacy focuses on an intrapsychic conception. Intimacy occurs when an individual achieves full self-knowledge, and is fully in touch with his or her feelings and wishes. From this viewpoint, an intimate act occurs when a person is willing to share these feelings and wishes with another, so that self-disclosure becomes an important index of intimacy. This definition also implies that intimacy need not be reciprocal, so that a therapeutic relationship can achieve a good deal of intimacy without the therapist engaging in self-disclosure. An alternate approach to intimacy stresses the interpersonal nature of the concept. Intimacy is seen as the product of an interaction, and can only occur between people. Each one is able to touch something meaningful in the other, whether at a conscious, behavioral level or an unconscious and inferential level. Therapists seeking intimacy in these terms would probably be a good deal more active, and consider it more important to reveal something of the substance of their own persons, if not the facts of their lives.

There couldn't be a more appropriate method for illustrating the dynamics of psychoanalysis than the vehicle of story. In this book, Kerry L. Malawista, Anne J. Adelman, and Catherine L. Anderson share amusing, poignant, and sometimes difficult stories from their personal and professional lives, inviting readers to explore the complex underpinnings of the psychoanalytic profession and its esoteric theories. Through their narratives, these practicing analysts show how to incorporate psychodynamic concepts and identify common truths at the root of shared experience. Their approach demystifies dense material and the emotional consequences of deep clinical work. The book covers psychodynamic theory, the development of ideas, various techniques, the challenges of treatment, and the experiences of trauma and loss. Each section begins with a brief memoir by one of the authors and leads into a discussion of related concepts. Overall the text follows a developmental trajectory, opening with stories from early childhood and concluding with present encounters. The result is a unique approach enabling the absorption of psychodynamic concepts as they unfold across the life span.

Mitchell Wilson explores the fundamental role that lack and desire play in psychoanalytic interpretation by using a comparative method that engages different psychoanalytic traditions: Lacanian, Bionian, Kleinian, Contemporary Freudian. Investigating crucial questions Wilson asks: What is the nature of the psychoanalytic process? How are desire and counter-transference linked? What is the relationship between desire, analytic action, and psychoanalytic ethics?

Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts enter an emotional relationship when they treat a patient; no matter how experienced they may be, their personalities inform but also limit their ability to recognise and give thought to what happens in the consulting room. The Psychoanalyst's Superegos, Ego Ideals and Blind Spots investigates the nature of these constrictions on the clinician's sensitivity. Vic Sedlak examines clinicians' fear of a superego which threatens to become censorious of themselves or their patient and their need to aspire to standards demanded by their ego ideals. These dynamic forces are considered in relation to treatments which fail, to supervision and to recent innovations in psychoanalytic technique. The difficulty of giving thought to hostility is particularly stressed. Richly illustrated with clinical material, this book will enable practitioners to recognise the unconscious forces which militate against their clinical effectiveness.